Mega update

Well, a lot's been going on.

Archery:

Not much here due to other stuff. Due to issues with the compound being so heavy, I've been using Rob's old recurve bow, but using it barebow. It shoots really well and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Due to other commitments though, haven't been to archery very much.

Computers/Games:

I got Saints Row IV for the 360 for a pittance and have been enjoying that. It's a bit weird as it goes in a very weird direction, but great fun. I've also still been replaying BioShock Infinite on the PC but have had a bit of a lull recently. Still a fantastic game though.

I've also been enjoying FTL again after rediscovering it and also it runs nicely on my laptop which definitely not a gaming machine. Today I bought Elite: Dangerous in the Steam sale as it's hard to resist at that price but won't get to try it until tomorrow on my main PC. I'm also tempted to to try out Civilisation V again.

Going to have a computer shakeup at some point as I'm now effectively living between two places. My main PC is still on Windows 8.1 but my Yoga laptop is on Windows 10. The PC is still running great though, even though it's only a 2nd generation i5.

I'm feeling very ambivalent about Windows 10 though, which has left me reluctant to install it on my main PC. I like the OS generally but I don't like the rampant data mining that things like Cortana apparently need, or the way it keeps 'recommending' it's own browser, etc, and how updates keep resetting things to the default apps and so-on. It just feels like Microsoft have taken away a lot of control of it from the user. I suppose that's fine for most people but for an enthusiast it doesn't feel quite right.

Have been experimenting with a Raspberry Pi and a 5" screen that connects to it. It works very well and I discovered that it will run from one of those mobile phone backup battery packs for a good 5-6 hours, even with a backlit desktop keyboard plugged in. Not quite the most practical portable computer but it could be fun to put it into a case or something. The Raspberry Pi Zero is an interesting concept which has just been announced today.

TV etc:

Been watching several things recently. The main one which was very good is Mr Robot - absolutely amazing first season. I appreciated both the story and the largely accurate depictions of technology.

Other things have included The Andromeda Strain, which was awesome. I enjoyed The Detectorists which is a really nice gentle comedy, and we have also started Bottom as I'd never seen it before. It's completely insane but good fun.

Series 9 of Doctor Who has been OK so far - a lot better than series 8 I think, although they really need to get rid of Clara. She's been there far too long now.

Rob lent me a graphic novel series called Saga. Hard to explain what it's about but it's extremely well drawn and has a very compelling story. Really good. Halfway through volume 5 at the moment.

Aunt visit:

We went to see my aunt a few weeks ago as we had said we would after seeing her at my cousin's funeral. She lives near Bury St Edmunds which is about 4 hours drive away. We travelled down on Saturday without any issues and checked into a new Premier Inn before heading over to see her. The hotel is brand new and very nice. The restaurant was great and we had some really nice breakfasts and evening meals there, and it was in a nice quiet location.

It was a really nice weekend - that first evening we had chips and watched the village fireworks display. She has a good view of them from her flat. We spent Sunday morning exploring the town. It's a nice place - very old and has a unique style in the town centre. It was Remembrance Day so all that was going on.

On Sunday afternoon we went and picked her up and went out for a drive, taking her to see some places she likes. Then we headed back to hers and spent quite a lot of time sorting out photos and things and then headed back to the hotel. The next morning we went and had a coffee with her and headed back. The return journey wasn't as good as the weather was bad and the roads busier, but made it OK.

Work:

Not much to report - it's settled down a bit now but still not quite sure what's coming up - possible restructure, etc. My primary laptop had a weird issue with BSOD so I ended up using a spare Thinkpad Helix that I'd repaired from the scrap. It was nice but the screen and keyboard were a little small. If it had had 8gb RAM though I might have made it my main machine as the small size of it is nice.

Misc:

The Merc is due to be taxed - can't believe I've had it that long! It's going in on Tuesday to have the brakes and suspension checked out as I think it's at that age where it needs it.

It's Steve's stag do this weekend which will be interesting. Hopefully it'll be a good time.

I saw a page recently that said what is something cheap and fun to buy off Amazon and one of them was a nano-quadcopter called the Cheerson CX-10. It took quite some time to get the hang of flying it, but once I did I really enjoyed it. It takes 15 minutes or so to charge and flies about 5 minutes.

I enjoyed it so much I ended up buy a CX-10C which is basically the same, but with a camera in it that can record video and take pictures. It's a bit more stable in flight. The other cool thing was an MJX-901 which is basically the same thing but a hexacopter. It's much more stable and controllable than the other two and flies longer. Very cool. I know these quadcopters can be a very expensive hobby if you get into the larger ones, but these little ones are so cheap and so much fun.

Clickety Clack

Well, it's been a good couple of weeks. Work has been hectic as always but I've been a bit more successful in not letting it get to me as much.

The car is still going fine and has had a couple more things done that have made it needed. The main thing was two new rear tyres as the ones on it were a bit shit. The fronts aren't a great make, but have plenty of tread. It also had a new seal to stop a slight gearbox leak and new transmission fluid.

In other news it was Rob T's birthday meal the weekend before last, which was at a local Italian that is very good. I had got him a book for his birthday about the science of cocktails, which he likes. I'd also got him a random card I found which was a copy of an old map of Montgomeryshire because I know he likes maps. It turned out that it's from the same series that they have framed ones of already so that was a nice coincidence.

My fascination with mechanical keyboards continues. I've been using the Ducky Mini in work to see what it was like, and it is pretty good - I definitely type more accurately on it, although the 60% layout can be a little awkward with systems that use menus or F-keys a lot. I also got hold of an interesting old portable machine called a Dolch Pac 64 which is one of those cool lunchbox style portable computers. It's an old Pentium MMX based system that has network analysis and sniffer software on it. But the main thing is that it has Cherry MX Blue keyswitches. As fun as it was revisiting Windows 98, my plan is to rip out the Baby AT motherboard and swap it out for something more modern and make it into a portable server type thing.

I'm typing this on a HP laptop that my Dad's wife gave me. She replaced it with an iPad and was going to chuck it as the battery had died. But apart from the battery it's fully functional. It has a nice keyboard, nice 11" screen and some sort of AMD CPU. I've put 8gb RAM in it and have decided to try Linux Mint on it. It's pretty nice actually and I might put an SSD in it and use it as a test machine. Not sure if I'll keep Linux on it or try Windows 10 on it which is due out today.

We've had a couple of sessions of DnD recently, which have been good fun. They defeated my creatures infesting the sewer they tried to 'sneak' through and I've got a week to prepare for the next challenge.

I've been trying to sort my eating out with limited success. The positive thing is that I've introduced vegetables into my work and home meals which has worked well, but I'm still struggling with the snacking side of things. My knee has also played up again this past weekend after I squatted down to do something and stood up again. It's not as bad as the last time as it's already getting much better, but it's a bit of a warning sign. Still...small changes are the way to go rather than trying to do it all at once.

I've not been to archery again for a while which is bad so I'm hoping to go this coming Sunday. Between wanting to spent time with special person and Rob and Em being busy, it's just not panned out as I'd hoped really. Oh well.

Misc things

The main thing that happened recently is the Kent BBQ. This is the third one I've been to, and it was another great weekend. We headed down on Friday evening as usual, but had to come back on Sunday as Rob and Em had used all their leave going to New Zealand in January. We took my car due to it being larger and more comfortable.

The theme this time was 'W' and after considering various options (Worf, Wesley Crusher, Weeble), I ended up going as Wales, basically wearing all the worst rugby supporter tat you can imagine. I also took a swearing in Welsh cheat sheet I made up from websites about it, which was quite funny. The night was very good, some of the costumes wer ace, Jake's, Wes as Wolverine and Andy C as a white spaceball with the genuine helmet were great. I didn't get too drunk, fortunately, after the shameful performance a couple of years ago, but still had a good time. The evening did degenerate a bit towards the end and one of the large mirror's in Jake and Laura's bedroom did get smashed, which was a bit much as the house had just gone on the market! The next day we had breakfast as usual and headed back in the minibus to get the car and head home.

Not much else to report really. Work is still proving difficult at the moment but not much I can do about that. The car is going well and happily isn't costing much more than the C3 did in terms of fuel economy. It's had a service and is going in next week to have a bit more work done to make it shipshape. I do need to find some way to get an aux input for the stereo however. It has the functionality but not the cabling required. However it might be possible to sor that out.

The C3 has also been sold to a woman in St Asaph who I hope will be happy with it. I will miss it - what a great little car it was, much to my surprise. I also got a refund of the tax on it pretty quickly too, which is nice.

I've also expanded my mechanical keyboard collection, having got quite addicted to them. As well as the Corsair K65 RGB, I dug out the Cherry G80 I bought last year with Blue switches, and I also discovered another Cherry keyboard in the scrap pile in work. It appears to be a rare G80 variant with a smart-card reader and has Black switches. It is an odd one as it has Windows keys, but also an old 5-pin DIN XT connector with a PS/2 adapter on it. Bizarre. I'd love to get that working. I also got a Ducky Mini as I was intrigued by the 60% layout. It has Brown switches and is really nice - incredibly solid.

We've played a couple of DnD games, which have been good fun. The latest battle has begun and I just sprang a Gelatinous Cube on them - a creature Steve threatened to play several times. It'll be interesting to see how they cope with fighting it off.

It's Rob's bithday meal tomorrow, which wil be fun. Going to the local Italian place which is always good.

Need to sort out my eating again. Now that my knee is 100% better, I find that I'm really struggling again because of the amount of time I spent not really doing much and it became a habit almost. I have been eating badly though, and I'm not quite sure why. My weight has been dead on 95kg for a while now and I don't like it.

A few things

I'm not doing very well at keeping this up to date.

The main things that have happened recently are that the house is had quite a bit of decorating done, which is really good. It's made such a difference, even with the horrible old 70s carpets still in place.

I've also got a new car, finally. I did so much digging and research I ended up going in circles, but I had decided that I would like something nice. Eventually I decided to semi-seriously consider the W203 Mercedes C-class. The early ones were shite - rusty electrical nightmares. But the later ones are highly regarded so I decided to go and have a look at two of them. They were both estates, and pretty much exactly the same, but one was a C270 and the other a C220. The 270 was a bit of a shed cosmetically and didn't feel 100%, although the 5-cylinder engine was stonking once it had warmed up.

The C220 was much nicer and after some thought I went back and put a deposit down on it, picking it up last Friday. It's been pretty good so far but is due a service and needs a couple of little things looking at, so those are being done this coming Friday. It's nice to drive something that is so laid back and comfortable at highway speeds and I'm liking having an automatic transmission again. One downside is the lack of an iPod or Aux connector, however the factory stereo should be capable of it with the right cable added. Fuel economy so far is good, not quite as good as the C3, but acceptably close given that it's a bigger and more powerful car. Perhaps the service will help a bit in that regard.

I finally went to archery again the weekend before last. It was OK - I shot better than I thought I would, but not great really. But to be fair it's been three months since I last went. I had a go on someone's new longbow, which was really good - it was quite a beast though as it is the same poundage as my compound.

Not much else to report really. It was Rob G's birthday this last weekend and his girlfriend arranged a secret party. The boys took him out for a drink at the pub while the girls set up and then we took him back. Somehow he had no clue at all and it was really good fun. It's scary how quickly their golden retriever puppy is growing - for six months old he is truly enormous. I got Rob G the Graphic Superhero book as I have a copy and I knew it would be exactly his thing.

I made the pleasing discovery that Eisbrecher have released a new album, back in January. Somehow I missed that, so I've got hold of it. It's really good and perhaps one of their best ones.

I finally sat down and had a look at my little Trace Elliot bass amp. It's been making a weird crackling sound for ages now. The cause was pretty obvious - there is a tear in the speaker cone, but it was so dusty I hadn't seen it. It's a standard 8" Celestion speaker so I've ordered a replacement one for it.

One project at the moment is that I've had this idea to install a small screen in the front drive bays of my PC tower. These days such screens are quite easy to get hold of so I ended up getting a 5" 800x480 screen which is designed to clip onto a Raspberry Pi. But because it uses HDMI it'll work on anything. My first attempt to get it working was with a USB graphics adapter with a HDMI connector mounted inside the machine but I think I'm going to just hook it up to the main graphics card, although this does mean sending the cable outside of the case which won't be quite as tidy.

More fun and games

It's been a pretty painful couple of weeks again. Not long I recovered from my chest infection, I was asked to help move some furniture. It was fine, quite heavy, but that evening I noticed my knee was aching. The next morning it was agony and it took ages to get better. After a week I went to the doctor and she made me bend it to the point of agony, but basically just said to keep taking ibuprofen. I was sent for an X-ray though as this isn't the first time this has happened and she thought there might be something wrong, but it came back clear. I'm a bit worried about next week though as there is some server hardware to move in work and I don't want to do it again.

Fortunately it is back to normal now, so I don't have to endure the humilation of hobbling around with my Mum's old walking stick. However I do feel that it might be a symptom of how unfit I've become over the last few months and to do something about it seems to be wise.

I'm also really conscious that I've not been to archery for so long now. I've been thinking about how to integrate it now that my life is changing quite a bit and I think I've come up with a plan, hopefully.

Work has been a bit stressful, due to large system upgrade of the social services system, which has been in the planning for literally years. It was all done last weekend, it took quite some time on the Friday and half of Saturday. Fortunately, apart from a few niggles it has gone well and is working OK. There do seem to be speed issues, but that appears to be because the application servers are only 32-bit and therefore limited to only 4gb RAM. I'm really glad this has gone OK because it was dumped on me after one of my colleagues left, and it's been looming for weeks. There's still plenty of work to do of course, but at least this big upgrade has been done.

In other news, I've not been doing much. I've been idly looking at cars, but was handicapped by my knee - I was hoping to replace the C3 before the tax ran out but I've now taxed it.

I'm still intrigued by smart watches, but have decided that while the Pebble does have decent battery life, it's a bit too far in the stripped down direction so have got rid of it in favour of an LG G Watch R. It's one of the models with a round screen. It's an interesting question whether a square or round screen works better. I think the round screen is aesthetically more pleasing, but of course not as good for displaying information. Anyway I've only got it today so we'll see how it goes.

Had a great night with a few guys from work the other week on a Friday. One of the guys has just got a house so we had a night in with Akira on DVD and pizza, which was great. It was one of the days that my knee was particularly bad though so I ended up embarrassingly being waited on hand and foot. The food was from a kebab shop which is not far from work and is very good, and is a dangerous temptation at lunchtimes.

There was also a DnD session in Rob G's new house a couple of weeks ago. It was good, but not much play went on due to not having seen each other in a while and their 3 month old golden retriever wanting to play with everyone. It was good fun though, although I had to apologise the next day as a combination of my knee hurting and tiredness made for a quite a grouchy DM that night.

Been rewatching some old movies and Star Trek episodes with special person, which has been good fun. Highlights included The Commitments, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which we watched yesterday with large quantities of popcorn.

The work on the house has halted for a little while now that the kitchen is basically done apart from painting. The next step is decorating the hall and living room, which will be quite an undertaking. That is due to start in a fortnight or so.

Birthday week

Been a while since updating this thing due to being quite ill. Two weeks ago I went over to special person's place on the Wednesday evening as normal, and realised I didn't feel 100%. The next morning I was clearly in no state to go to work and I ended up being off sick for a week. By the following Tuesday, I was so bad that I went to the doctor. He listened to my chest and said it sounded awful and prescribed me some antibiotics. These hit the spot and by the weekend I was OK.

It was my birthday on the Sunday. Special person and I had a nice, but busy day. We went to my Dad's for lunch, which was nice and then we headed over and met up with Rob and Em, and Jane and Wes, who were up for a flying visit. We got the chance to meet their new baby, Robin, who was only 6 weeks old. The big surprise of the day was special person buying me an electric double bass, as I'd mentioned that I'd thought about getting one before for 'giggles'. It's quite a challenge to play compared to a bass guitar, that's for sure.

After that we had a nice meal with my Mum before heading back. She got me an interesting infra-red heater thing. It looks like a whiteboard but is a heater. Very odd. It works quite effectively though.

I headed back on Monday and then it was special person's birthday on Tuesday, but unfortunately they were working late, so we had the birthday stuff on Wednesday. It was another really nice day, although we did just stay in. The presents I'd bought were much appreciated and it was a great day.

The house works are continuing. The new kitchen is nearly done and it's a vast improvement on the old one. The living room and hallway are hopefully going to be decorated soon.

In other news I finally bought myself a soldering iron so I could do the pickup upgrade on the Dirnt bass and put new strings on it. I think it'll end up sounding great. I also treated the PC to a fancy new gaming keyboard. It's a mechanical Corsair one with backlit switches that can all be customised. I've got it set to blue and green at the moment, but the keys briefly flash red when you press them, which is a subtle but nice effect. I've also relocated the PC off the floor to hopefully make it pick up less dust and given the case a proper clean for the first time, clearing off some old sticker residue and things. It's quite a nice case but it still gave me a nasty cut when I was trying to get at the power and hard drive LEDs.

I've been carrying on with BioShock Infinite on the PC. I'm playing it on Easy because I just want to enjoy the experience of the story and visuals. I also have tried out Assassin's Creed 4 that Rob lent me on the 360, but as with the previous games I find the controls difficult and frustrating, even though the boat driving parts were quite good. The Oculus has been returned but I have since lent it out again since I'm not quite in the mood to use it at the moment for some reason.

My car is due to be taxed, so I thought about changing it for something more comfortable, but it's all a bit up in the air as I might need to change it to something suitable for lugging my Mum around and the dog. But since the DVLA are being indescribably shite about telling her if she's safe to drive or not, I don't know what I should get. Also since I'm not very good a choosing cars, I'm scared that whatever I look at will be rubbish. I'd like something a bit more solid, perhaps German built, but what to get?

More random stuff

It's been a weird couple of weeks.

I was on annual leave last week, but it wasn't really the greatest week. On the first Sunday special person and I went up to my cousin's house to get her beloved cat, Toby, so he could moved to his new home. He's going to eventually live with Rob and Em, but since they've just started their extensive building works he's being fostered at Em's parents. The poor thing has always been a shy cat and took ages to warm to my cousin. After two weeks alone in the house apart from being fed, he took refuge under her bed and didn't want to come out. After a spirited chase we had to trap him in the conservatory and he finally gave up.

He was very good in the car on the whole - he yowled a bit as you might expect, but didn't do any dirty protests. Upon arrival at Em's parents, he promptly found a very secure hiding place behind the washing machine, but has since emerged and with the care and attention from Em's sister Vicky, he is now having cuddles and being generally adored. Which is brilliant.

Unfortunately that day I started to feel a little iffy and was absolutely shattered after all that day's driving, but I then spent the rest of the week with a cold. Which put paid to any plans I had for the week.

It was the funeral on Thursday. My Dad and I went up with special person on the Wednesday to the hotel where the family were staying in preparation. My Dad had already said he didn't want to drive as it was a bit far for him, but at the same time didn't trust my car, so we went up in his after he'd added me to the insurance. The drive up was fine and we got there just as a few other members of the family did. I was shattered after the drive as the cold wasn't great then, and so we had a lie down before going out to see the family. There was a lot of talking and catching up and my aunt had a lot of pictures of my cousin, which were great to see.

The next day we met up and headed to my cousin's house where the hearse and funeral cars turned up. To my surprise they were all silver - which I think she would have approved of. It took a bit of time to get to the crematorium and when we did there was a delay as someone attending the funeral before us had had a heart attack.

The service itself was short and simple. It was a humanist one, with no religious references. My cousin had said exactly how it was going to go and it was really nice. But she was very cheeky and had Jessica by the Allman Brothers as the exit music - otherwise known as the Top Gear theme. Only she could get away with that! Afterwards it was back to the hotel for the get-together, which was very busy as a lot of her friends and work colleagues turned up. It was very special to see how many people she'd made friends with.

We ended up leaving quite early as my Dad wanted to get back, and I spent the rest of the holiday and weekend, apart from Friday night, round with special person, just hanging out. Typically, today is the first day I feel better, right when I'm back in work. Probably a good thing though as it's been a shit day all round and to cope with feeling ill as well would have been hell.

Not much else to report - up to Series 3 of the great Bluray TNG rewatch and have finished Better Call Saul, which I really enjoyed. It felt a lot like Breaking Bad, but did it's own thing very well. I watched the first episode of the new Daredevil series, but it didn't quite grab me, so I watched the second one and it has got better. I also installed BioShock Infinite on the PC to see how the new graphics card coped with it - very well is the answer, so I want to replay that at some point. I lent the Oculus to Steve about three weeks ago, but he's had it a lot longer due to me coping with other things.

I'm quite enjoying the Pebble watch still. It's pretty limited I guess, but of course it lasts several days, which other smartwatches don't. Also my phone upgraded itself to Lollipop a couple of weeks back which has taken some getting used to. I don't like this new trend of having fields and buttons not outlined properly and making everything flat. It seems like a step backward. When I got my cousin's old iPod touch with iOS 8 on it, I was shocked at how hideous it is compared to the older versions and I reacted similarly to Lollipop, although I don't think it's as bad.

I've been gathering parts for a new project bass, since I haven't had a proper parts assembled one for ages. It's going to be a Jazz bass with an extra pickup by the neck and three Jaguar-style switches to turn them on and off, and the headstock will be shaped like a 51 P-bass, just because. The body was quite cheap though and will need a fair bit of work to look presentable.

Random stuff

Not much to say really - work is much the same...not been to archery in a while...but the big thing is that my cousin passed away last Wednesday.

She'd been struggling for a while after the cancer returned and I went up to see her three weeks ago with special person to see how she was and drop off a new laptop. I knew she'd been having problems eating due to struggling to swallow, but the reality of seeing her at 7.5 stone was quite a shock. As well as dropping off the new laptop, we took her cat to the vet and did a few other jobs for her. The weekend before last, she went into hospital with a chest infection and it was too much for her to fight and she died last Wednesday morning. I heard about it in the evening from my sister and although we knew it was coming, it was still a massive shock. Due to various random communication issue, I heard it from my sister, and had to tell my brother in Berlin.

I've been gradually trying to process it over the weekend but it has been difficult.

In other news, not much to report really. I have upgraded my PC to a GTX 970 graphics card, which involved some modification to the case, but runs games very nicely. I've got Bioshock Infinite to replay on it and it looks amazing. There's probably other things to put on here but I can't really think of them right now.

Many many things

Oops...been a bit shit about updating this thing.

Work has been a bit of a nightmare over the last month - the upcoming staff changes due to the restructure have started to take place causing big concerns and problems and a corresponding dip in morale. Then, to make things even worse, one of my colleagues in the server team handed in his notice and isn't being replaced which is a bit of a nightmare. I've already had to start picking up extra work.

The Windows Server 2012 course last month was good, and surprisingly interesting. It covered a lot of AD too, which I will certainly find useful now. It was good fun exploring Manchester as well, finding places to eat. I had Chinese mostly and had a good time exploring Chinatown and finding amazing things in the supermarkets there like Pork Floss, Tempura Seaweed, Prawn Seaweed and Peanut Soup.

Haven't really played any game seriously since finishing Skyrim. I did try Arkham Asylum on the PC, but I just can't get into it, I really don't know why. I lost interest in FTL because of the randomness of it, but it is still fun. However after being intrigued by them for months I scored an Oculus DK2 on Ebay. For what is basically still a prototype it works pretty well, even on my aging PC. The head tracking and movement is spot on, the only downside is the screen resolution. Oddly enough the display in it is the same as a Galaxy Note 4, to the point where the DK2 actually has the front panel from the phone in it. Bizarre. The goggles fit OK over my glasses but my eyesight must be really bad because I have to use the lenses for nearsighted people AND my glasses.

Some of the demos and things for the DK2 are amazing, some less so. I think the best ones have been AirDrift, which allows you to fly around a mountain range or a village, and Birdy King Land, which is very impressive despite the stupid name. There's also Don't Let Go, which is pretty good fun with headphones on.

Now HTC and Valve have announced the Vive, and Sony the Morpheus and even Google have done the weird Cardboard thing. I'm still not quite sure how mainstream VR will become, even though I've been fascinated by the concept since I was quite young. But the idea of a 4k phone that you can pop into a headset for VR use is an interesting one.

I've consolidated the Yoga 2 Pro data onto the Yoga 13, which has now had extensive surgery to have a new 250gb SSD installed, and the original 128gb SSD moved to the secondary slot. The new SSD is a bit faster and has the space for the data from the Yoga 2 Pro. The 2 was nice with the 3200x1800 display, but was limited to 4gb RAM so I decided to move the data onto the Yoga 13 and put the Pro on Ebay. Not much interest yet - that might be because of it's French keyboard that I converted to the UK layout with stickers...ahem.

I've been to archery a couple of times since Rob and Em came back from NZ. It's been OK but I was out of practice, and I was very tired during the last shoot so my arrows went all over the place. I was very cross and on the point of getting a new, lighter, bow. But since then I've decided that I'll stick with it and sort out the grip with some badminton racquet tape to make it easier to hold. A guy at the club has just started using a back-tension release aid with his bow, which sounds terrifying.

The house works continue gradually. The roof is now adorned with solar panels, although they aren't actually hooked up yet. I didn't think it was the right time to do it but I was overruled. Otherwise the walls will be sorted soon after the electrics were done and then we can start redecorating for real.

I finally signed up for Netflix and have been watching a few things on it - mainly Better Call Saul and Black Mirror, both of which have been pretty good. The feel of Better Call Saul is very much like Breaking Bad, and that's no bad thing, but at the same time I feel you could watch it without having seen BB. 

Basses - I've been naughty and have picked up a couple more. The first one is a Mike Dirnt signature which was cheap as it's been badly refinished in black, so I've got a few ideas to do with that one. The next is a 5-string version of my beloved Squier Jazz Bass. Apart from the extra string, it's theoretically identical,but it has slightly different pickups and a satin finish on the neck, which is much nicer than the gloss on the 4-string. It's even got a two-piece body, which is unusual on Squiers. Anyway, it's beautiful, plays nice and I'm very pleased with it. I just need to get rid of a couple of the others and then it'll all be sorted.

The car has been OK, it needed a new battery last week and I put new wiper blades on it today. But it's future is still undecided until we know for sure if my Mum is losing her driver's license. The wretched Berlingo has been repaired and is back on the road. I've driven it since and I still don't like it.

I'm on leave this coming week, which will be nice as it's been a while since I had a full week off. I don't have any real plans apart from going to visit my cousin Pauline on Thursday. She's still suffering from the wretched cancer, but it looks like some of the treatment she's been having might be slowing it down. It's still upsetting to see her in that state, but she is coping pretty well with it all.

Many things

It's been a good few weeks on the whole.

Work:

Back to normal after the Christmas break. Working on a new backup system which has gone sort of OK in fits and starts. It's always a bit of a faff getting it configured. The fun part was when it need to be reconfigured to stop it killing the network when backing up from a remote site. Otherwise it's been a bit of a curious time lately with the restructure that's going on - I won't hopefully be directly affected but the management is going to change considerably and because of that there's quite the atmosphere at the moment.

Games

After finishing Skyrim I've been playing Arkham Asylum on the PC using a 360 controller for a while, that's pretty good fun and in the last week or so I've been playing FTL. That is a really fun game and is quite immersive somehow despite the crude graphics. But the randomness of the game can be quite frustrating and unfair sometimes. Still, it's good fun and I really enjoy it. Rob has also lent me the latest Assassin's Creed game, Black Flag, but I haven't had a chance to sit down with it yet.

Misc

I've not been to archery recently as Rob and Em are away and I'm not too keen on going on my own so I've been spending the time doing other things including spending a fair bit of time with special person, which has been really nice.

The house has finally had the new bathroom finished. It looks pretty amazing now it's done and the new shower is quite striking and works very well. The tiles that were used are sort of stony ones and it looks great. There's also a fancy cabinet with a mirror on the front, which actually has a demister so it doesn't get steamed up which is pretty cool. Also the work to sort out the wiring throughout the house has started - the first stage is to replace all the existing sockets and wiring and add plenty more. Then at some point in the future the lighting will be done.

My Mum's car suffered a pretty catastrophic failure of the front suspension today after I drove it over a speedbump. The struts gave way and the springs came through and started rubbing on the tyres. We had to get the RAC to come and get it and take it to the garage in Denbigh that normally looks after it but with the flaky gearbox and smoky engine, I don't know if it's going to be worth fixing it. Also the whole reason I was driving it today was to take my Mum to have an eye test to see if she can keep her driver's license and she didn't think that it went very well so we might not need that car anyway.

Fortunately after the test we we heading to my Dad's house and the suspension only gave way when we were nearly there. Could have been worse - 70mph on the A55 would have been a bad time. After the Berlingo was gone, we had some lunch and my Dad brought us home in his wife's car, a nice Audi A4. It's got a 7-speed autobox which is ridiculously smooth.

Back to work tomorrow and still sorting out that backup system amongst other things. I'm on a training course next week in Manchester which should be interesting - Windows Server 2012. It's the first course I've been on in six years and when the opportunity came up I decided to do something more relevant and useful. There's also another course towards the end of March, which is VMware. I'm staying over in Manchester both times, which I'm less keen on though.

Fun fun. Life can be strange sometimes.

Misc

Christmas:

Generally good, spent the day between my parents as usual and skyped my cousin Pauline who is not doing all that well, but it was good to see and talk to her. Spent boxing day and some time between Christmas and NYE with special person which was great.

There was also the Christmas party at Rob and Caroline's on the 27th which was good, but the snow up there led to me nearly getting the car stuck when it came time to leave and I bottomed the front bumper out. The night was great fun and ended up with a fun 80's quiz competition between boys and girls which got quite competitive. Also lots of excellent food, conversation and petting of ancient, demanding cats.

Because of everything going on with the house and things, I didn't get presents for people, instead I got everyone Amazon vouchers, which seems to have gone down well.

NYE

Was at Rob and Em's which was really good as usual. Very good to see Jane and Wes as well, and even Xander who was hyped up on sugar. The night was really great, and we played Cards Against Humanity, which is a horrible game but very funny.

Archery

Only went twice since the last update. The first time we went, someone had locked up the gym so we were forced to shoot outside, but it was so windy it was a real danger to our arrows. Em broke three of her new ones because of the way they were hitting the target. My compound was incredibly difficult to hold steady in the wind and the arrows were all going right. After I missed at one point, I gave up. Fortunately the arrow was easily found.

On the 28th it was the Frostbite shoot, which happens every year and takes place regardless of weather. Fortunately it was a bright clear day but there was a good couple of inches of frozen show. It was a very cold long day though, even with the catered lunch in the middle. There was also some awards given out - and somewhat to my amazement I got three! The club record for shooting a Short Warwick with a compount (probably because I'm the only one to do it), a 3rd class for compound, and a Black WAA Indoor Classification. Surprising but good. And then Em won the Frostbite shoot and I came 6th! Not bad!

Misc

A few other things. The house has been torn apart to have the bathroom done meaning that I'm now unable to wash at home, generally scavenging showers elsewhere, usually when I'm with special person or at my Dad's house.

Yesterday I finally finished the main Skyrim questline. There's not much else to do now apart from the civil war stuff, but I think I'll do that anyway. It's been a hell of an experience...what an incredible game! I've logged 84 hours on it and reached level 34 - and that's nothing compared to what some people have done. I think for the £7 I paid for it, I got an exceptional amount of entertainment! Not sure what to play next, but I think it'll be the Batman Arkham games on the PC.

I've been tweaking the basses a bit by putting new strings on them and playing with the setup. I've also ordered a new project bass - a Squire Precision Bass TB, which is a reissue of the 70's Telecaster bass with a big fat humbucker at the neck. Not quite sure yet what I'll do with it but I've got some ideas. I'm also considering putting the Bass VI up for sale - it's a fun instrument but not really for me.

The car has been a bit troublesome as the headlights are playing up a bit. They have a levelling system which is a bit dodgy in both lights. The left light was missing the cover so water had got in. It constantly tries to keep going upward and the right one is mostly OK but sometimes just points downward. I also replaced many of the bulbs since the indicator bulbs had gone white and the dipped headlight bulbs were useless.

Otherwise the car is going OK. Now that fuel is cheaper I've been running it on Shell V-power which makes the engine run smoother and nicer, especially on the A55. Now that I've been doing more travelling on the A55 I keep considering changing the C3 for something more appropriate as it's not at it's best at motorways speeds. But I can't think what to get.

Still pleased with the gaming PC I got off Robert. It's stll running nicely and now has had an 8th hard drive installed, a 1tb one to back up the contents of all the others. I just need to get some more RAM for it, but that will have to wait until next payday. I've listed the Asus G73 it replaced on Ebay at last, hopefully it should still be worth something.

I'm feeling really fat and unhealthy at the moment...been eating a lot of shit and doing barely any exercise, so I need to get that in hand again.

Still...it's a whole new year, hopefully this one will be good. I feel quite optimistic for a change, and certainly less lonely, which is good. We'll see how it goes.